When music critics look at the late '70s, chances are they focus on the birth of punk rock or the explosion of innovative sound coming from the UK.

They tend to gloss over the success of artists like Captain and Tennille who scored a half dozen radio-friendly hits during their reign, songs like "Do That To Me One More Time" and "Muskrat Love" that still haunt the popular consciousness of people like me who grew up during that time period.

Like many successful artists today, TV producers wanted to do everything they could to cash in on those musicians' rising stars. Today that means a guest slot on a talk show or an appearance in a teen drama. 30 years ago, this meant crafting a series or a TV special around the music and the personality of the artists and slapping it up in the prime-time schedule.

The three discs that comprise this set are crucial examples of this practice, each highlighting the last of the TV specials that Daryl Dragon and his wife Toni Tennille starred and performed in, all offshoots of their popular variety show. They feature all the hallmark qualities of these programs - guest stars, stilted acting, canned laughter and applause, references to the pop culture phenomena of the day, and a bevy of songs both new and old.

Sometimes, as with Barney Miller star Hal Linden's performance of the theme to the film The Goodbye Girl (a runaway hit in 1978) lip-synched as he strolls on a riverboat in the New Orleans special, you get it all rolled into one.

Viewed as time capsules of an era of troubling fashion choices and the sanguine music that dominated AM radio, they are fascinating to watch. As well, people who still count themselves amongst Captain and Tennille's fan base in the year 2008 will also get a thrill out of watching the duo perform with the likes of B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald, Fats Domino, and David Soul (of Starsky and Hutch fame). The rest of the world will glide right past this on the store shelves with nothing but a shrug and a small knowing grin.